RPM not installing rpm packages giving error messages!

[linuxnewbi]

Hello all, I have been trying to install a critical
RPM package on Linux 2.0.36 redhat. The RPM version is 2.5.1 according to rpm --version.

However when I do rpm *.rpm the stupid program gives this error message:

only packages with major numbers <= 3 are supported by this version of RPM


Ok fine, so I went to rpm.org and downloaded version 3, version 4, and the damned thing there won't install on my linux. It's a P3 800 pc. What's going on?

I just want to be able to install some RPM packages. Could anyone please give me a source to d/l the freakin' binary for RPM from a website so that I can get on with my work rather than worry about packaging programs?! Thanks in Advance!!!

 

[RhythmAce]

when you ran rpm did you use -Uvh? It would look like this:

rpm -Uvh *.rpm

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

The dear old redhat package manager (rpm) underwent changes with version 3.x and more recently with 4.x such that the underlying rpm database was upgraded making rpms built with new versions incompatible with systems running earlier versions of rpm. For example, if a rpm was built with version 4.x then you can only install it if you are on version 4.x yourself.

To upgrade rpm on your particular system to rpm 4.x you would need a rpm built on a system running version 2.x . If the redhat ones give you this catch-22 situation then the resolution would be to download the source rpm, build it yourself, then install from the built rpm. You would probably have to change the dependencies config first, however.

Did you try downloading this --> ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/updates/5.2/en/os/i386/rpm-4.0.2-5x.i386.rpm

and then doing as root :

rpm -Uvh rpm-4*.rpm

if it gives dependency errors you may just need one or two other rpms upgraded together.

Hope this helps

 

[bgarlock]

You may want to try and rebuild the RPM database:

rpm --rebuilddb (as root)

I did this after upgrading from RPM 3.x to 4.x, and it cleared up a lot of issues I was having.